#China
Sino-Czech Honeymoon, Five Years On
“I want to apologize that I do not have a working golden chariot for you to take, as Elizabeth II had for you,” quipped the Czech President Zeman welcoming Chinese leader Xi Jinping on…
China, the 17+1 Platform, and Taiwan: a ‘New Stage’?
At the occasion of the 17+1 virtual summit held in February, Chinese President Xi Jinping confidently declared that ties between China and the 17 Central Eastern European countries entered a new stage. By now…
Why the EU Must Deal with Montenegro’s Chinese Debt
Dritan Abazović, Montenegro’s deputy prime minister, formally requested the European Union’s help in repaying the debt to the Exim Bank of China in late March. The appeal not only renewed the EU’s focus on…
Can European AML Laws Reveal Who Owns Huawei?
To improve the transparency of Chinese companies, the EU needs to change how it approaches beneficial ownership registration under the block’s Anti Money Laundering (AML) rules. A large part of the discussions surrounding security…
China’s Rapidly Developing Disinformation Requires a European Response
As China’s ‘mask diplomacy’ has receded, ‘vaccine diplomacy’ has quickly taken its place and added vigor to China’s efforts to “tell the China story well” in Europe. Amidst these efforts, Brussels has been caught…
Watchdogs Detail Damage Done by China in the Western Balkans
Construction of the Bar – Boljare highway in Montenegro by China’s China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) has brought irreversible damage to the UNESCO-protected Tara River. Known as the “Tear of Europe”, its riverbanks…
Serbia Turns Multi-Vector Foreign Policy into Development Model… With China’s Help
Few people following international affairs will have missed the now infamous photo of the Serbian President, Alexander Vucic, kissing the Chinese flag at Belgrade Airport a year ago. In the global scramble for protective…
How China and India are Competing in Vaccine Diplomacy
At the first high-level summit of the “Quad” grouping, the US, Australia, Japan and India agreed to jointly develop, finance, distribute and manufacture vaccines in order to increase vaccine production and to counter Chinese…
The Logic of China’s Vaccine Diplomacy
This article was originally published in The Diplomat and is republished here with the permission of the authors. Since May 2020, when Chinese President Xi Jinping announced at a World Health Assembly meeting that China considered…
China’s EU Sanctions Ultimately Score an Own Goal
On March 22, the EU announced sanctions against four Chinese officials as well as the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps Public Security Bureau in connection to ongoing atrocities in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region. In…
Is China a Sustainable Partner on Issues of Environmental Sustainability?
In concluding the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI), the EU’s Executive Vice-President and Commissioner for Trade, Valdis Dombrovskis, declared not only that China is a valuable partner in terms of its growing economy…
Voice for CHOICE #6: Evaluating China’s Environmental Record with Isabel Hilton
As both the EU-China CAI 17+1 summit begin to fade from view and more challenges yet emerge for China and their relations with both the EU and CEE nations, the Voice for CHOICE podcast is picking up on one of China’s evermore present promises in such high-profile meetings and agreements in 2021, that of climate cooperation